


Rainbow Coloured Skin

by fivebyseven



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, Inspired By Tumblr, Minor Allison Hargreeves/Luther Hargreeves, Reginald Hargreeves' A+ Parenting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-03
Updated: 2021-01-16
Packaged: 2021-01-21 07:15:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21295607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fivebyseven/pseuds/fivebyseven
Summary: There's not much Vanya can say about soulmates, despite the fact that she researched them thoroughly. The only thing that all scientists agree on is that it doesn't really matter if you've known that person for a day or a lifetime, your marks will react only in specific circumstances. Most people think it's a "right timing" kind of thing. She's not sure that's the case, not with how it happened for her. To be honest, she doesn't think there could've been worse timing.Five, on the other hand, never cared about it. It's too illogical for his taste. And the interest it might have held was crushed by the apocalypse a long time ago. He has no reason to look for a soulmate nor does he want one. Especially not after returning in 2019 in the body of a 13 years old. But Fate has always liked to mess with him so, really, why should it have gone any other way?
Relationships: Allison Hargreeves/Luther Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy/Vanya Hargreeves, Vanya Hargreeves/Leonard Peabody
Comments: 14
Kudos: 88





	1. A Shower Of Colours

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fiveyaaas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fiveyaaas/gifts).

There's not much Vanya can say about soulmates, despite the fact that she researched them thoroughly. The only thing that all scientists agree on is that it doesn't really matter if you've known that person for a day or a lifetime, your marks will react only in specific circumstances. No one knows why but most people agree that it's because the timing it's right. She thinks it's quite annoying, the idea that you might encounter your soulmate and don't know because some force above you didn't think it was the right moment doesn't sit right with her. But, then, not everything is right in the world and Vanya is more than familiar with the concept. Still, she'll occasionally look at her black fingertips and wonder who is she supposed to touch and when for them to light up in all the colours of the rainbow.  
After _it_ finally happens, she thinks 'the right timing' thing it's just bullshit.  
  
Five is not exactly thrilled by the concept of soulmates. It's no doubt an interesting subject but it has pretty much no scientific explanation and it's something that seems destined to just be, regardless of the how or the why. It's frustrating, for someone as logical as him. He only rarely thinks about who it might be, despite the fact that his gaze drops to his own mark, or marks, often enough that his siblings mistook it for longing. It isn't, not really. It's just interesting to observe the pattern the black patches of skin form and try to guess what kind of touch would leave such marks.  
After _it_ happens, he thinks that whatever it is that controls those things should just go fuck itself.

* * *

  
Reginald's funeral is exactly the shit show Vanya had expected it to be, with the only exception being her missing brother falling from the sky. He says he's fifty-eight while making a sandwich and, okay, Vanya feels a little concussed if she's being honest. Happiness is there too, of course, but the usual numbness from her pills keeps it at bay even during their small talk in front of his portrait — _One and Two still fight, Three is sadder but as confident as ever, Four is still high, Six won't fall from the sky like Five. Seven still watches from afar and then goes home feeling just as empty as before. Until she opens the door to see her brother waiting for her in complete darkness like the weirdo he used to be (is)._

* * *

  
Five being _Five_ doesn't really think twice about going to Vanya's place and waiting for her to come home. Of course, in hindsight, he should have thought of warning her. He doesn't, however, and just follows the scrap of paper with her address that Pogo had quietly slipped in his pocket until he reaches the right building.  
He looks up at the open window of the second-floor apartment and sighs, knowing all too well that this body wouldn't be able to jump again.  
  
**_"Fuck."_**

Five sits on an armchair after closing the window and trying to lock it without success.  
Briefly, he runs a hand through his hair, a desperate way to appear as collected as he can even as he hears the door opening.  
It's only then that he turns the lamp on.  
  
"Christ!"  
  
Five inwardly grimances, noticing for the first time how creepy the situation must appear to her but still appreciating the theatricality of it all — _God, I really am a smug bastard, aren't I?_  
  
"You should have locks on your windows."  
  
Because of course Vanya wouldn't. She had always been careless like that.  
  
"I live on the second floor."  
  
"Rapists can climb."  
  
And since no one noticed a kid climbing through her window he doesn't think passers by would be of any help.  
  
"You're so weird."  
  
Five raises an eyebrow at the exasperated fondness radiating from her words and takes the time to acknowledge who his favourite member of the household had become in his absence.  
He doesn't particularly like what he sees.  
There are bags under her eyes that clearly indicate many sleepless nights, her clothes are chosen to fit every background and her hair is shorter, tied back in a sloppy bun that's the direct opposite of the long waves he remembers running his fingers through as kids.  
She doesn't care about herself enough to have healthy habits and it shows — _god, she's so thin, does she eat at all?_  
Besides that, Vanya is still very much similar to the lovely little thing he left behind.  
_Size wise too_, he thinks, biting back a smirk.  
  
His gaze is, as it had always used to be, drawn to the black fingertips of her hands. Apparently she still hasn't found her soulmate. The smugness that comes with that thought is quickly stored away, too bitter and _cruel_ to be analysed further.  
  
"Is that blood?" asks Vanya, concern shining through the facade of detachment.  
  
"It's nothing." He says quickly, not wanting to face the subject with her.  
  
"Why are you here?"  
  
"I've decided you're the only one I can trust."  
  
_ I need your support more than anyone else's right now._  
  
"Why me?"  
  
_Because you're** Vanya.**_  
  
"Because you're ordinary."  
  
Vanya deflates, obviously hurt and feeling rejected and Five swears in his mind — _I really am a goddamn genius, I managed to find the most horrible thing I could say to her and just spit it out without a second thought. How can she understand how important her being ordinary is without even knowing about the apocalypse?_  
  
"Because you'll listen." He amends, praying for it to be enough.  
  
"Okay." Vanya says, right before getting up.  
  
He looks at her go and wonders if he's crossed the line, if he fucked _this_ up too and she wants him to go away now. Vanya comes back with medical supplies and he can't help but soften, the image so familiar it causes a pang of intense regret in his chest.  
  
"Let me see..." Vanya whispers, preparing some bandages and hissing sympathetically when he shows her the gash on his arm. It's still bleeding right between his own soulmark, a series of black, dot-like shapes.  
  
Slowly, as if she were approaching a wounded animal Vanya grasps his arm.  
And it immediately flares up in a shower of colours, just like her fingertips.  
  
She gasps, letting go of his arm and watching her hands with disbelief.  
Five lets his fingers caress the rainbow coloured patches of skin and wonders at the curious feeling blossoming in his chest.  
  
_It's awe_, he thinks, _it must be._  
  
As quickly as it came, though, it leaves, dread springing up in its place.  
A soulmate.  
Eight days before the apocalypse and he found his soulmate. Vanya, of all people. The sister he left behind ended up being the one person he should've spent a lifetime with. Five feels sick, the irony too much for him to bear.  
  
Vanya is still staring at her hands, brightly coloured fingertips stark against her pale skin, with wonder and something akin to joy in her eyes. She had always wanted to meet her soulmate, he remembers suddenly. The thought of having someone to love and to receive love from had been a lifeline for the loneliest of the Hargreeves siblings. Five can see the exact moment she realizes who her soulmate is in her eyes. Wonder morphs into shock and joy leaves its place to a frustration that _screams_ of missed chances.

  
Without saying a word, Vanya patches him up, lips pulled into a tight smile, and pointedly ignores the rainbow coloured patches of skin surrounding his wound.

  
He leaves, what he'd wanted to say completely forgotten in the face of their new predicament.  
The door shutting behind him has an air of finality he doesn't dwell on.  



	2. Intermission - Feelings

The next day Vanya wakes up at her usual time and stretches, raising her hands over her head and curling her toes. For five, blissful seconds, she can’t remember anything of what happened yesterday. Then, of course, everything comes crashing back and she stills, groaning. Vanya opens her eyes and looks at her hands whose fingertips are brightly coloured.

_“Shit.” _

It doesn’t make sense, this unexpected bond right when she’d resigned to be alone – or it does, instead. Or it makes so much sense it hurts, makes her heart crack and splinter under the weight of a _“what could’ve been”_ that’s been haunting her for a decade.

_At the back of her mind. Constantly. A gentle, nostalgic whisper that spoke about doughnuts and violins and the sweetness of fluffernutter sandwiches. _

Five had been in her mind, in her heart, for far longer that she cares to admit.

It’s that revelation – or, rather, that admittance of truth – that makes her rise, wash and clothe herself in her most comfortable outfit and tie her hair up.

_She’s got somewhere to be_.

It takes her half an hour to reach the Academy, the cold morning air turning her cheeks pinker.

There’s a nervous energy building up in her stomach, one she’s intimately familiar with. What is decidedly _unfamiliar_ is the fact that its because of Five, her greatest comfort back when they were kids and fondest memory as a lonely adult.

It doesn’t matter, she thinks.

This is not a confession nor an apology. This is a request to _know_ him above all. To know each other and what it means to be soulmates and fill the gaps that time has put between them.

She’s not preparing for a rejection because why... _why would she be? _

This is a different Five but its clear _her_ Five is still there, buried under layers of loneliness, and he has no reason to deny her.

“Five? Are you up here?”

It’s almost too slow, the way she walks. She’s noticed it multiple times, had been informed by pissed off passers-by and co-workers even more often, but today it feels doubled. It’s like she’s being physically held back, every step closer to the upper floor a death sentence. She can’t help but doubt, in the time it takes her to reach his room, that he might not be there, after all.

That her Five might be gone and the glimpses of him from the previous night were nothing but wishful thinking.

She’s _worried. _

She’s got no reason to be – so what if he says no? So what if he met someone? _What if she wore her gloves just to hide the colour from her sight because it made her feel lost and small and unsure, just to see it? _

This is what she’d wanted all her life. There’s no reason to not reach out and _grab_ _it_ and hold it tight, tight, so that it might not disappear, slip through her fingers like sand.

_This is Five, after all. Who knows where he could go._

* * *

Five hasn’t had a break ever since he came back, not really. His mind’s still trying to catch up, working through every possibility and coming up empty.

_Why now? _

Because god knows his younger self had prayed for this exact thing to happen a million times – back when things were _easy_ and Five was were he was _meant_ to be, at Vanya’s side. Back when his only concern was keeping her safe from the insults and sneers thrown her way by father and the others. Back when things just _made sense_.

But no. The universe, in its infinite wisdom, had decided that now – now that there was a world to save and math to be done and _the wrong goddamn body_ – is the ideal time.

Five is _tired_.

Its a special kind of tiredness, one that’s bone-deep and runs through his whole body. He thinks it might be reserved for apocalypse survivors but, then, he doesn’t really know what it’s like to live as an adult in the normal world. He thinks someone else might still experience it. Vanya surely looked faded enough to classify as close.

He hopes it isn’t the case, though.

He is _so goddamn tired._

He’s been tired for _forty-five years_.

He doesn’t know if his body is heavy or if it’s something else, if what’s crying and screaming and mourning still is what other people call _soul._ If it’s just his heart calling for a home.

And there’s nothing more, _nothing more_, that he’d like than to throw himself at fate, to spin his sister around and work together to build an actual, honest-to-god future for the both of them.

_But he can’t, is the thing. _

Right now, he really can’t let himself be distracted. Not when _happiness_ and _stability_ and _home_ are so very close.

When _Vanya_ is so very close – he’d called her name, when he first fell through time and fucked himself up spectacularly. He’d run home, he remembers, and looked at the ruins. His mind had been a chant of _VanyaBenKlausLutherAllisonDiegoDadMomPogo_ that kept getting stuck on _Vanya_ for longer than it should have. He’d called for her, before anyone else.

He’s got to push her back, to keep her in a little box in his head for safekeeping, and move on.

_He’s had lots of practice. _

**Author's Note:**

> So... this is completely random but I liked the idea so there it is. Please, tell me if there are any spelling mistakes, English is not my first language. Also, updates will be very slow, as I am busy with school and other fics.  
I hope you liked it!


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